Bionic Dues:BD Pilots
At the beginning of your game, you will be prompted to select your Exos and your Pilot. Your Pilot provides you with unique bonuses. It is worth noting that no Pilot (as of release) has any penalties; every downside listed here is simply to indicate the weaknesses or limitations of their bonus. As such, do not worry about trying out a different pilot or feel you have to restart for a different pilot--they are all very capable of taking on the incoming robot horde.
Axis
A professional scout drone pilot before she became an Exo driver, Axis has the ability to see 4 missions out on the city map instead of the usual 3. Even more importantly, she has the ability to undertake missions that are 2 away, rather than the usual 1, thereby letting her skip missions at will.
Benefits explained:
- The ability to strike 2 missions out is huge. Axis can avoid Blockade, Outrun, and Fuel Tank missions that other pilots would either have to perform or go around.
- Being able to scout farther means she can find important missions, like Bahamut Installations and Robot Command Centers more easily than other pilots.
Downsides:
- No in-mission combat bonuses.
Emma
A young socialite from the relatively privileged upper-middle class, she was still not able to afford the expensive bionic implants that could have saved her from the accident that claimed part of her face and neck. Thanks to her social connections and black market contacts, the store can offer her a much better variety of items in both quality and kind. She also gets more money back from the store when she sells something. For other Exo drivers, the store is a useful tool. For Emma, shopping is a way of life (and death, to robots).
Benefits explained:
- Gets more money from selling parts (bonus unknown), since credit income is limited by number of bots killed and items sold, this can be an useful advantage.
- her store has 36 items. they come in 4 grades (orange, violet, blue, green), 9 of each. (regular store has always 12 items. 7 violet, 5 blue).
more items to choose from means more variety and better chances to find the item you need to complement your strategy. more expensive (orange) as well as cheap items (green) give you a better way to customize your exos based on your preferences. considering that blue items already have a prefix and a suffix which both give bonuses to the item and with Emma being able to choose from more at the store, means you will find useful items more likely. also keep in mind you can keep specific store items you can't afford at the moment in storage (otherwise new items after each mission) through the layback option. this will allow you to go on missions, and get the items later.
Downsides:
- Her bonus doesn't help much for the first 2-3 missions, as she needs credits to make good use of her passive.
- orange (legendary) items are extremely expensive.
Meg
Formerly a mechanic before the accident that led her to becoming an Exo driver, Meg is able to utilize her skills and knowledge to get better performance out of the Exo Parts loot that she finds (so a Mark-4 part for her will have stats like a Mark-6 would for someone else, etc).
Benefits explained:
- Her item stats are better than that of other exo pilots. (aprox. +20% rounded down)
- Effectively allows access to maximum-Mark (XXV) items earlier.
(Personal note: her ability does not seem to increase the maximum performance cap on items; it seems to flatten out - will need to check.) ->not sure thought only stats are affected not simply the level of items found.
Downsides:
- consider that better stats of useless items, still make useless items... it's not clear but unlikely whether the better stats have an impact on selling price.
Tuck
Tough and resourceful, Tuck's skills at sleuthing lend him an enormous tactical advantage in missions: he can see both his objectives and the location of all terminals and loot without first exploring to them.
Benefits:
- Can rush missions without losing out on any loot.
- Knows what is behind every locked door without hacking an Intel Terminal.
Downsides:
- Occasionally, enemy bots will take advantage of Tuck's knowledge of mission targets. This can be especially annoying during Hostage Rescue missions.
- Rushing missions will not give as much credits as completely clearing the whole map--Tuck's passive is wasted if you want to completely clear a level and have enough hacking points to open all Locked Doors.
Genji
Born and raised in the part of town where the robot presence was strongest, Genji is very familiar with the robot menace. So familiar, in fact, that he was able to sneak into the Bahamut Device installations and bring back all four Epic Exos before his mission in the city even begins!
Benefits:
- Starting with all 4 Epic Exos. Normally your exos will be upgradable by completing bahamut missions. these late game exos have incredibly powerful weapons which give you a significant advantage. the damage output and range can allow you to take more difficult missions early on.
- Epic Exos have more slots (computer, propulsion, shields, etc.) for items. the slots are great for global effect items.
- Not needing to fight Bahamut missions gives Genji up to four more days to freely explore and spend on offensive strategic targets, such as Lion's Den and Assassination missions.
Downsides:
- In losing the Bahamut missions, he also loses out on obtaining violet loot (up to 16, because bahamut missions only appear according to the number of different exos you are using. so 1-4 bahamut missions) as a reward aside from upgrading a exo.
- Genji's bonus doesn't add anything to the late game, whereas other pilots will have likely completed Bahamut missions and still have their passive.
Rey
The teleportation technology used to deploy exos to the battlefield is highly demanding on the Exo Driver managing the neural link, so few can perform any but the simplest transportation. Rey has a brain of such a caliber, however, that he can use one of the cheesiest, er, we mean "most powerful" exploitations of teleporter technology: "flipping" an exo with a copy of it from the past. In practice, this means that the first two times you lose an exo in each mission it will instead be replaced with a completely restored version of itself. This man's outta control.
Benefits:
- 2x free instant replacement of lost exo. is a significant bonus for tough missions and error-prone pilots, which will give you a better chance at getting full loot since all your exos survive.
- replacement will have full hacking, sentry turrets, etc. So killing off an exo might be useful to replenish ammo and skills, which can be invaluable.
Downsides:
- Mainly attractive for tougher difficulties and in-cautious pilots.
